


Dream Girl

by marcus_the_great



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Genre: Doubt, F/M, Koholint, Legend needs a hug, Linked Universe, POV First Person, a beautiful dream, angsttttt, but a happy end, just a oneshot, married??, ofc i added a fight scene, she’s his dream girl ;), she’s his dream gorl hahah, these two make me so soft istg, wind fish - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26172316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcus_the_great/pseuds/marcus_the_great
Summary: You can never be sure if she’s real or not!“ Is that all this is? Another beautiful dream, yet nothing more than a random recollection of stimuli and forged memories? ”
Relationships: Link/Marin (Legend of Zelda)
Kudos: 12





	Dream Girl

The shadowy body of the now headless creature begins to lose form, curling into itself. The dark matter convulses. 

I suck in a breath of air, eyes following the bizarre contortions of this amalgam.

My body aches everywhere, shoulders hunched over the rest of me. There’s a particular flare of pain over the right side of my ribcage, and my hands are clenched so tightly around my sword and shield that I wonder if I’ve been turned to stone. 

It’s been a hard fight, the dark form of my adversary is lithe and almost intangible. It feels like an eternity that I’ve struggled to catch this monster off guard. 

_...Is it over? _

No. I narrow my eyes as it’s newer form begins to meld together, take shape. It’s got a round, stout body. Two extremities, grotesque arms made of bulbous shapes. The ends of the “arms” are shaped like starbursts, red light emanates ominously from the tips.

A giant eye comes into focus, sliding its gaze from the floor, and up to me.

I force my body into a stronger stance, shield out-held in front of me, head up and alert. The creature is still ongoing it’s metamorphosis, shedding its metaphysical skin and molding into a new figure. 

I grit my teeth. Goddesses be damned if this isn’t the last time.

I see its’ eye bore into mine, and a faint yellow glow pours out from it. 

Then, it begins to move.

It extends its arms out towards the perimeter of the eggshell, still heading towards me. 

I panic, a curse escaping me as I fumble for Roc’s feather. A strategy begins to form, albeit in fragmented form. Its’ plan of action is to get me cornered along this side and then ram into me. I already know how dangerous this thing is in close quarters. It doesn’t have the natural armor of a helmasaur, instead it’s body takes on a gelatinous quality, congealing around and onto my skin upon contact. 

It leeches away at you. I barely grazed it earlier with a knee, which has since dissociated from the rest of my body. 

I strap my shield to my back, clutching the feather in one hand, praying to the goddesses that this creature of shadow is as dumb as it looks. 

My injured knee can barely comply as I sink lower towards the ground, eyes judging its distance from me, as it nears closer and closer. 

Now!

I bound out of my sunken posture, easily gaining five feet on the monster. As I near the apex of my ascent, I tuck my body in, angle my head downwards. 

I squeeze my eyes shut against the nauseating aerial somersaults.

Somehow, I manage to sweep my unharmed leg out towards the ground, snagging the floor, spinning myself to face the representation of all the evil present here on Koholint. It’s just about reached where I’d been a few seconds ago. 

That’s my chance to strike. Trying to get in with my sword is too risky, the blade doesn’t cause any lasting damage. It’s eye is the weakness. 

_ Why is it always the eye? _ I mumble to myself as I grab my boomerang, my fingers connecting around its rounded wooden body. 

Maybe it’s because the eye is the hardest spot to protect. You can watch how well you’re guarding your vitals, but your eye can’t look upon itself. It may be the proximity to the cranial cavity.

Either way, I trade out my sword for the boomerang, bringing it back behind my head. 

The creature has stopped, reaching the edge of its container. With an inhuman  _ glop _ of its body, the dense center rotates, its eye descending from its former position, steadying itself on me once again. 

I bite back a look of disgust. I’ve never been the most accurate with one of these, but it’s worth a shot. The boomerangs they have there are beyond that of their Hylian brethren.

I’ve seen them cut straight through moblins, octorocks, the like. 

With one last minute correction, I swing my arm back around, loosening my grip to release the boomerang.

The air seems to crackle around it, solidifying itself into a blade, a blade heading straight towards the giant, glowing eye.

As it strikes true, I can hear a voice boom out around me, ricocheting off the smooth walls of the egg. 

“This island is going to disappear... our world is going to… our world… gone...” The prolific voice goes on, the volume building until it’s almost unbearable. Until I can almost feel my ears begin to bleed.

I can feel my surroundings begin to lose their physicality, and I sink into the floor, the world melting around me. The voice continues. And soon, another- even louder voice, joins the discordant cacophony.

“Long has been my slumber... an egg formed the island, the people, the  _ world _ in my dreams... a world full of the living!

“...But it is the nature of dreams... that they must come to an end! Koholint will fade... only the memory will remain!”

The voice pauses momentarily, as the sky pours out into my head, a stark blue fills the nothingness under my eyelids, a blue that deepened along the horizon. 

“Link,”

The voice bears no recognition to itself.

Before, it has the deeper register of an old man, ancient, as old as time itself. But this voice... it was light, airy, as bright as a fresh breeze. Melodic, the type of voice that is delicate, breathy, but breaks into laughter. It deepens like a canyon and loses itself in the expanse of the sea. It’s Marin.

She materializes out of thin air, a strange expression on her face. The nonexistent wind has snagged onto her hair, lifting up orange strands into flight behind her. It’s halfway between a sob and a smile. Her mouth is positioned into a soft smile, but her eyes are crestfallen. My breath catches.

“it’s time to wake up, isn’t it?”

The pain I’d been feeling is gone, but her words send a crack of lightning through me, jarring me into another fit of pain. 

“I… wait.” I manage to get out, the rest of the words evaporating off my tongue. I try and put a foot forward, to coax myself over to her, but it’s no use. 

“It is time for you to awaken,”

The maw of the void opens up towards me, like the large mouth of a whale, ready to unhinge and take the whole of the island with it. 

No, this can’t be happening. 

“Marin!” I call out, feeling pathetic, frozen in place, stiff as an effigy.

“Marin please! I- I never wanted this…” 

I hear a resounding clap of thunder, and a blinding whiteness crashes into this blue world. 

“Why did you do this? Why did you leave me to die?” 

Her voice rings in my ears, layering onto each other, twisting themselves into new words.

“You left me to die! You left us all!” 

I vaguely remember clamping my hands over my ears, letting loose a scream. 

-

“Darling?”

My heart thuds against my ribcage. Blood rushing in my ears. I can feel my bangs plastered against my damp forehead, a rawness of my throat.

It’s like vertigo, I’d been in some catatonic freefall, now violently snapped back into my body. 

“Hey,”

I can hear the “tsk tsks” in her voice as her hands cup my face. One hand strays upward, mopping my hair from my brow. And then, I become keenly aware of the water pooling in my eyes, the profound knot in my throat.

“It’s you..” my voice is nothing but a whisper, and yet my words prick at me. 

“Yes, I’m right here with you,” she replies with equal softness as she thumbs away the tears about to spill over my eyelids. 

The silence of the night eases our words away, and for the time being I focus on calming my nerves.

“I swear to Din…” I mutter, hands bunched up in the fabric of my cotton shirt, “it’s drenched.”

Her laugh sounds like the ringing of bells, “Here, lemme get you a dry pair. Just toss this in the laundry, okay?”

I can feel the mattress shift as she stands. 

I shrug off the shirt and toss it to the basket in the corner. Remarkably, I don’t miss the shot.

Marin is still over by the dresser, fumbling through the stacks of shirts. Her voice resurfaces in my mind, the nightmare rearing its ugly head. 

_ You left me- you left us all. _

Is that all this is? Another beautiful dream, yet nothing more than a random recollection of stimuli and forged memories? Usually, I force the thought down without a single glance, but Dream Marin’s words start to ring in my ears again. 

“Do you hold anything against me?” 

I don’t realize I’ve moved across the room until the words pour out, my hands move to grasp her shoulders. Her  _ tangible  _ shoulders. 

The drawer clicks shut and she spins to face me. 

“What do you mean?” 

I can barely make out her face in the darkness, but I see her squinted eyes darting across my face, a mouth slightly open in question. 

I sigh. 

I’ve told her the most out of any of my confidants, even more than the other possessors of the Hero’s Spirit. She’s used to the usual song and dance of comforting me after another of my nightly terrors. 

“I dreamt of Koholint again. The Wind Fish… you- you told me I’d left you to die- left  _ all _ of you to die.” I swallow down the lump in my throat, narrowing my brows to stop the torrent of guilt. “I know it was my fault… I hate how I left everyone, you, your father, the Trendy Game owner, all of them, to just cease.”

Her mouth forms a silent “oh”. I feel her hands link together at my back, my head droops to her shoulder and I set my hands on her waist.

“There is nothing I could ever hold against you, my love. It was all just a dream, they all have to come to an end eventually- yes? The scars you bear…” I feel her run a finger along a scar at the small of my back, about the size of my fist, the skin slightly raised. “they may never fade, but we can move on,” 

Despite myself, I feel the tug of a grin on my face. Her hair tickles my cheek. 

“How can I be certain you’re not just a dream?” I ask, louder this time, more coy. 

I can feel her throw herself into a laugh with the swing of her shoulders, a hand goes up to my hair. 

“You know,” Marin says matter-of-factly.

I’ve pinched myself probably a hundred times, and she’s always remained. 

How I lost her and found her again has remained an enigma, that the goddesses may have not let me down as I’d suspected those years ago. 

Maybe she was never truly gone, yet never fully here either. 

She’s a songbird, a gust of ocean air, something we try so desperately to grasp, to cup in our hands. She’s a dream, veiled in whimsy, the gauzy, bittersweet nostalgia of a long past summer’s day. 

She’s so full of life, everything she does is so full of passion, fervor, an itch to throw herself into her moods with pure, unbridled abandon. I know she’s here with me, not something concocted of my loneliness.

She is untethered, a bird on the wind, a person made of dreams and reality. 

“I do,” I return, because dreams will all eventually fade, but dreams are only dreams until you awaken. 

_ -fin _

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i hope someone caught a few references i made to the in-game dialogue, as i tried to incorporate some of it. i’m obsessed with these two right now, and i hope you can see the love i put into my writing. 
> 
> enjoy!! xoxo, grace :)


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